Beware the offers on Experian’s site!

[Anonymous]

Well they finally got me after over a year of $1 and free trials. Was checking my cards today and noticed a $14.99 charge from Experian. Called them and they said that this last free trial was only 7 days and I canceled a day too late. No refunds since they build a grace period in to begin with. 

The past few months they had been offering me free trials for 30 days instead of the $1 for 7 days that they used to offer. My bad for not paying attention (although I swear it was a 30 day trial, there's no confirmation email or anything to prove it one way or the other). I was going to dispute it with NFCU but I decided it's not worth the headache. I'll make sure I downgrade same day going forward. Fortunately I had the money in my NFCU savings account so I didn't have to take anything out of my budget. 🤷‍♂️ 

Make sure you read and save screenshots in addition to canceling the trial immediately. Going forward, I'm going to put it on a virtual credit card number that I can switch off after I sign up (thank you, Capital One Eno). 

[EverForward]

I noticed they removed their free 7 day free trial period for their CreditWorks Premium program after I demo'd it a couple times.  I'm eager to see my updated 3B scores, but I don't want to spend $20, until I know I have improved scores. I have two newer cards, one just reported to the CRAs, and the other hasn't reported yet. Soon I hope.

[Citylights18]

With Chase now reporting Vantage Experian, I've moved over to looking at Credit Karma with Vantage Transunion and Equifax.

Now granted its just the Vantage sores but it gives me a free Trifecta to look at which also updates quickly.

The free credit score offered by some of these banks is so behind that whatever number they produce is meaningless.

[Anonymous]

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@EverForward wrote:

I noticed they removed their free 7 day free trial period for their CreditWorks Premium program after I demo'd it a couple times.  I'm eager to see my updated 3B scores, but I don't want to spend $20, until I know I have improved scores. I have two newer cards, one just reported to the CRAs, and the other hasn't reported yet. Soon I hope.

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So when you log in on the website it's not offering you anything? The app doesn't generate offers but the website does like clockwork for me. As soon as the trial and the grace period is over with, logging into the site pops up an offer. 

Where they got me this time is that it's the first time I've been given a free trial that wasn't 30 days. The $1 ones were always 7 and the free ones were always 30. This is a new offering that's pretty awful tbh - it has an *annual* 3 bureau update instead of monthly or quarterly like the others. Fortunately it was only $15 instead of $25 though so that part worked out at least. The money I paid it from is money I don't even add to my ledgers (it's money that gets released every month when I pay $3 towards my SSL) so I am not really that upset about it. I did let them have it on the survey they sent me almost immediately after getting off the call though. 

[Anonymous]

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@Citylights18 wrote:

With Chase now reporting Vantage Experian, I've moved over to looking at Credit Karma with Vantage Transunion and Equifax.

Now granted its just the Vantage sores but it gives me a free Trifecta to look at which also updates quickly.

The free credit score offered by some of these banks is so behind that whatever number they produce is meaningless.

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Yeah the only reason I do these trials is to track my FICO changes month to month. I have WalletHub and Credit Karma as well as the Experian app. 

I think this is my last time doing EX trials though. Disco gives me free TU8 monthly, Experian gives me free EX8 monthly, Service CU gives me free EX2 monthly, DCU gives me EQ5 monthly, NFCU gives me EQ9 monthly, and Langley gives me free EQ8 although I don't know how frequently. It's not as neat and tidy as all in one place and will mess up my signature reporting a bit but from now on I'm declining EX trials unless they're $0. EX won't see another penny from me. 

[Ficoproblems247]

The EX loophole is amazing. Paid $1 the very first time and get offers to reactivate every time I cancel. I accept an offer on the first, cancel the next day and my membership stops after about another 12 days. I accept another offer around the 14th and rinse and repeat. Free 3B reports and scores twice a month with daily full range of EX updates. 

[EverForward]

@Anonymous When I log in from my PC, I receive a 30 day trial offer for Experian CreditWorks℠ Plus for 30 days free, then pay just $14.99 a month. When I look to switch my membership, it used to offer 7 days free trial, now it looks like they charge you day one.

Thanks for the list of sources for free monthly scores.  I recently was approved for Discover and just realized my TU8 score was there, and it's up 30 points.

@Ficoproblems247  Thanks, are you referring to EX CreditCheckTotal.com website?

[Anonymous]

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@EverForward wrote:

@Anonymous When I log in from my PC, I receive a 30 day trial offer for Experian CreditWorks℠ Plus for 30 days free, then pay just $14.99 a month. When I look to switch my membership, it used to offer 7 days free trial, now it looks like they charge you day one.

Thanks for the list of sources for free monthly scores.  I recently was approved for Discover and just realized my TU8 score was there, and it's up 30 points.

@Ficoproblems247  Thanks, are you referring to EX CreditCheckTotal.com website?

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Just take the free 30 days and cancel. That's the offer all of us have been doing. Whether it offers you 30 days, 7 days, free, or $1, just take it and you'll get your scores. Cancel, repeat. I don't like the 30 days because it throws off my monthly score updates but I liked them because they were free instead a buck. 

EX has never offered me a second free 7 day period when I have gone to the switch membership option, they've always been full price. 

[Anonymous]

@Anonymous @ I got caught a few times by Experian with the $1 trial. I would forget to cancel until after the billing date. But thankfully I have it billed to a cash app account that has only $2 in it so they haven't been able to process the charge and then I eventually am allowed to log in to change my billing details.  They try to make me enter a new credit card before even logging in to downgrade but I just wait a few hrs and try again and then eventually I get in and downgrade. The best thing to do is cancel a day or 2 after you sign up. This way it can expire at the 10ish day mark and you won't get charged. 

They only offer me the free 30 day one. I haven't gotten the $1/7 day trial in months. They must be on to me 

Its not worth the $14.99 because now the 3 bureaus due to Covid offer free reports every week I think. I do the 30 day trial to get the fico score from all 3 bureaus and then I cancel and wash rinse repeat next time I get the offer. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous @ I got caught a few times by Experian with the $1 trial. I would forget to cancel until after the billing date. But thankfully I have it billed to a cash app account that has only $2 in it so they haven't been able to process the charge and then I eventually am allowed to log in to change my billing details.  They try to make me enter a new credit card before even logging in to downgrade but I just wait a few hrs and try again and then eventually I get in and downgrade. The best thing to do is cancel a day or 2 after you sign up. This way it can expire at the 10ish day mark and you won't get charged. 

They only offer me the free 30 day one. I haven't gotten the $1/7 day trial in months. They must be on to me 

Its not worth the $14.99 because now the 3 bureaus due to Covid offer free reports every week I think. I do the 30 day trial to get the fico score from all 3 bureaus and then I cancel and wash rinse repeat next time I get the offer. 

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Yeah I learned my lesson. I will downgrade as soon as I pull the scores from now on and I'm going to switch it to a Capital One virtual credit card number which I'll just lock after I place the order. The only reason why I even had the cashRewards in there as my payment method is because when they were charging a buck, it was an easy way to show some consistent activity on that account.